Animal Temperament

Temperament is associated with the well-being, health, production and reproduction of
cattle. In order to increase the population of individuals with the desired temperament, its evaluation should be standardized and be made one of the obligatory elements of breeding and veterinary examination. A number of different tests are used for temperament assessment. In this article, the importance of temperament correlation with some metabolic, genetic, immunological, production and reproductive parameters have been shown, pointing at its influence on the economy and cattle handling. The most common methods for assessing the temperament of cattle are presented, including long-time scales of temperament assessment. At the same time, the relationship of the temperament of cattle with production efficiency, immunity and reproductive indicators has been shown, indicating that its correct assessment is an important aspect of the proper development of the herd and the associated economic growth.

It is argued that the postnatal growth rate should be linked to maternal body weight by the exponent 0.75. This theoretically derived hypothesis is found to be consistent with published data on the growth rates of mammals in nine orders. We emphasize the importance of defining the taxonomic level and period for which postnatal growth rates are measured.

Everywhere dogs are found, they are stitched into human hearts. But are humans stitched into theirs? Countless celebrations of 'the dog-human bond' suggest that they are. Yet 'the bond' does not always come easily to dogs. Dog politics seeks to denaturalise, in different ways, dogs' 'species story,' the scientific story that claims that being with humans somehow constitutes dogs' evolutionary destiny. This book asks what evidence exists for this story, what choices dogs have but to go along with it, and what expectations, demands, and burdens it places on dogs, on a daily basis. In doing so, it offers an unfamiliar and discomforting account of the lives of domesticated dogs today.

As well as offering a rich empirical analysis of conceptions of dogs in science, Dog politics uses dogs’ species story as the prism through which to refract a number of topics of contemporary significance. These include: how the relations between animal behaviours and species identities are established in theory and in practice; how the histories of concepts of ‘race’ and of species overlap and differ over time, with enduring implications today; and how the reification and exploitation of dogs' perceived relationality with humans can potentially transform an ethics of engagement into a hostile politics. Above all, Dog politics shows how species stories erase the singular animal as a figure of theoretical, methodological, ethical and political value.

Reviews summarizing the literature on heritability of behavioural traits in dogs have been published repeatedly over the last four decades. The conclusions of these reviews vary to some extent. We applied meta-analysis and re-evaluated the literature available collecting 48 references dealing with heritability of behavioural traits in domestic dogs. For each study included, data was extracted for individual behavioural traits. Each of these traits was entered into the analysis as a separate unit of measure, giving a total of 1763 measures. We classified the traits measured in each study into five functional categories (Environment, Herding, Hunting, Play, and Psychical characteristic). The meta-analysis has shown low general heritability of the categorised behavioural traits analysed. Thus, the commonly used behaviour tests for many breeds, to determine the dog's eligibility for reproducing, traditionally required by many associations, is not supported by the present results of the meta-analysis.

Past research has suggested that a variety of factors, phylogenetic and ontogenetic, play a role in how canines behave during problem-solving tasks and the degree to which the presence of a human influences their problem-solving behaviour. While comparisons between socialized wolves and domestic dogs have commonly been used to tease apart these predictive factors, in many cases a single dog population, often pets, have been used for these comparisons. Less is understood about how different populations of dogs may behave when compared with wolves, or with each other, during an independent problem-solving task. This experiment compared the independent persistence of four populations of canines (two groups of pet domestic dogs, a group of free-ranging domestic dogs, and human-socialized wolves) on an independent problemsolving task in the presence of an on looking human. Results showed that wolves persisted the most at the task while free-ranging dogs persisted the least. Free-ranging dogs gazed at the human experimenter for the longest durations during the task. While further research is needed to understand why these differences exist, this study demonstrates that dogs, even those living outside human homes as scavengers, show comparatively low levels of persistence when confronted with a solvable task in the presence of a human as well as significantly greater duration of human-directed gaze when compared with wolves.

In many species of animals individual behaviour differs, yet is consistent over time and in an array of different environments; in other words, these animals display 'personality' variation. This may emerge not by chance, but, instead, is shaped by selective processes favouring individuals who display a differentiated behavioural phenotype. Indeed, personalities are known to affect important activities such as resource acquisition, survival and reproductionwhich, cumulatively, impact an individual's fitness. We currently lack the insights and technology needed to fully characterise the genetics and physiology of most ecologically relevant behaviour; however, much can be gained by adopting an adaptive approach to consider the evolutionary processes that might have driven the emergence and maintenance of stable behavioural variation. Such an exercise will allow us to develop a priori hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying the behaviour, and to conduct powerful empirical studies examining how individualised behaviour impacts the life histories of a variety of species.

Research has suggested that a social separation during a macaque's infancy may result in later deficiencies in maternal behavior, as well as in reduced sociability. The present study examined whether monkeys now living in an all-peer group who had experienced a maternal separation 1.5 to 3 years prior to the time of these observations, displayed persisting social deficits. Using multivariate techniques, prior separation history, as well as several demographic variables were examined as to their role in explaining the observed variation in measures of social behavior and preference. The results indicated that, as compared to nonseparated controls, previously separated monkeys played less, displayed social preferences to fewer animals, displayed fewer contact preferences, and showed reciprocated preferences to fewer individuals. In addition, several gender and rank-related effects were found. In terms of the identities of the preferred partners, individuals preferred animals from the same natal group. The results support the notion that an early separation experience can result in long-term social impairment, although the effects appear to be subtle.

A follow-up study of monkeys who experienced maternal separations as infants 2.5-4.9 years earlier was performed. Matched pairs of previously separated and nonseparated control monkeys were observed individually in four unfamiliar situations, and their behavioral responses and plasma cortisol levels were measured. Results indicated that previously separated animals displayed more disturbance than did their matched controls, and levels of disturbance were significantly correlated with the degree of behavioral and physiological disturbance displayed during the original maternal separations. The results support the idea that the perception of the maternal separation may be a significant factor in whether long-term behavioral deficits exist in social and emotional functioning.

Consistent individual differences within (animal personality) and across (behavioural syndrome) behaviours became well recognized during the past decade. Nevertheless, our knowledge about the evolutionary and developmental mechanisms behind the phenomena is still incomplete. Here, we explored if risk-taking and exploration were consistent and linked to different ecologically relevant traits in wild-caught adult male European green lizards (Lacerta viridis) and in their 2-3 weeks old laboratory-reared offspring. Both adults and juveniles displayed animal personality, consistency being higher in juveniles. We found correlation between risk-taking and exploration (suggestive of a behavioural syndrome) only in adults. Juveniles were more explorative than adults. Large or ectoparasite-free adult males were more explorative than small or parasitized males. Juvenile females tended to be more risk-taking than males. Behaviour of fathers and their offspring did not correlate. We conclude tha...

This study was designed to (1) characterize the macronutrient composition of olive baboon (Papio anubis) milk, (2) compare baboon milk composition to that of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), and (3) evaluate the association between the proportion of milk energy derived from protein and relative growth rate within anthropoid primates. A single milk sample was collected from each of eight lactating olive baboons ranging between 47- and 129-days postparturition and six rhesus macaques from 15- to 92-days living at the same institution under identical management conditions. Macronutrient composition (water, fat, protein sugar, and ash) was determined using standard techniques developed at the Nutrition Laboratory at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. Baboon milk on average contained 86.0% ± 0.6% water, 4.7% ± 0.5% fat, 1.6% ± 0.04% protein, 7.3% ± 0.07% sugar, and 0.165% ± 0.007% ash. Baboon milk gross energy (GE) averaged 0.81 ± 0.04 kcal/g with 51.9% ± 2.6% from fat, 11.8% ± 0.7% from protein, and 36.2% ± 2.0% from sugar. Baboon milk demonstrated strong similarity to milk composition of the closely phylogenetically related rhesus macaque (86.1% ± 0.3% water, 4.1% ± 0.4% fat, 1.69% ± 0.05% protein, 7.71% ± 0.08% sugar, 0.19% ± 0.01% ash, and 0.78 kcal/g). There was no statistical difference between baboon and macaque milk in the proportions of energy from fat, sugar, and protein. Baboon milk can be described as a high sugar, moderate fat, and low protein milk with moderate energy density, which is consistent with their lactation strategy characterized by frequent, on-demand nursing and relatively slow life history compared to nonprimate mammal taxa. The milk energy from protein of both baboon and macaque (12.8% ± 0.3%) milk was intermediate between the protein milk energy of platyrrhine (19.3%–23.2%) and hominoid (8.9%–12.6%) primates, consistent with their relative growth rates also being intermediate. Compared to these cercopithecid monkeys, platyrrhine primates have both higher relative growth rates and higher milk energy from protein, while apes tend to be lower in both.

In primates, including humans, scratching and other self-directed behaviors (SDBs) have recently been reported to be differentially displayed as a function of social interactions, anxiety-related drugs, and response outcomes during learning tasks. Yet few studies have focused on the factors influencing SDBs in our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Furthermore, no previous experimental study has examined handedness of SDBs as a function of changes in task difficulty. Using matching-to-sample tasks of varying difficulty, the present study examines the effect of manipulations of task difficulty on rates, handedness, and type of SDBs in an experimental study of eight chimpanzees. SDBs were categorized as rubs, gentle scratches, and rough scratches. SDBs increased during difficult discriminations, but only for subjects who started the experiment on an easy discrimination; subjects who started on a difficult discrimination exhibited no differential rates of SDBs as a function of task difficulty. There was a tendency to exhibit relatively more SDBs with the right hand in the more difficult task. Rates of SDBs decreased after auditory feedback signals, suggesting a link between SDBs and uncertainty. Rubs were directed more to the face (trigeminal), and gentle and rough scratches more to the body (spinothalamic), suggesting that face-directed SDBs may index a different motivational basis than scratches. Taken together, these results extend previous research on SDBs to the domain of cognitive stress in nonsocial contexts, demonstrating that SDBs are sensitive to manipulations of task difficulty in chimpanzees.

Mammalian mothers pay heavy energetic costs to fuel the growth of their offspring. These costs are highest during lactation. Energy transmitted to offspring in the form of milk must ultimately come from the maternal diet, but there have been few comparative studies of the relationship between milk properties and mammalian diets. We used interspecific data on primate milk composition and wild diets to establish that concentrations of milk protein and sugar are predicted by diet independent of maternal mass, litter mass, and infant parking behavior such that increasing folivory or faunivory increases protein concentration but decreases sugar concentration. Milk energy density is unrelated to diet, though infant parking species do produce more energy-dense milk. While parking effects have been previously explained as a result of mother-infant separation, the mechanisms causing the relationship between nutrient packaging in milk and maternal diet are currently unclear. However, they lik...

The maternal environment exerts important influences on offspring mass/growth, metabolism, reproduction, neurobiology, immune function, and behavior among birds, insects, reptiles, fish, and mammals. For mammals, mother's milk is an important physiological pathway for nutrient transfer and glucocorticoid signaling that potentially influences offspring growth and behavioral phenotype. Glucocorticoids in mother's milk have been associated with offspring behavioral phenotype in several mammals, but studies have been handicapped by not simultaneously evaluating milk energy density and yield. This is problematic as milk glucocorticoids and nutrients likely have simultaneous effects on offspring phenotype. We investigated mother's milk and infant temperament and growth in a cohort of rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) mother-infant dyads at the California National Primate Research Center (N = 108). Glucocorticoids in mother's milk, independent of available milk energy, predic...

When an anticipated food reward is unexpectedly reduced in quality or quantity, many mammals show a successive negative contrast (SNC) effect, i.e. a reduction in instrumental or consummatory responses below the level shown by control animals that have only ever received the lower-value reward. SNC effects are believed to reflect an aversive emotional state, caused by the discrepancy between the expected and the actual reward. Furthermore, how animals respond to such discrepancy has been suggested to be a sign of animals' background mood state. However, the occurrence and interpretation of SNC effects are not unequivocal, and there is a relative lack of studies conducted outside of laboratory conditions. Here, we tested two populations of domestic dogs (24 owned pet dogs and 21 dogs from rescue kennels) in a SNC paradigm following the methodology by Bentosela et al. (J Comp Psychol 123:125-130, 2009), using a design that allowed a within-, as well as a between-, subjects analysi...

Domestic dogs have been shown to engage in interspecific communication with their owners using a flexible repertoire of signals (i.e., gaze, vocalizations, and postures). This ability is influenced by ontogenetic development as well as breed selection. Different aspects of this phenomenon have been studied using the out of reach/hidden object task in which a piece of food is shown to the dog and then hidden in an unreachable spot by the experimenter. Dogs’ behavioral displays toward the target and the owner (ignorant about the location of the food) have been observed. The complex communicative behavior dogs exhibit in this context is defined as showing behavior and includes attention-getting components directed toward the owner, and directional components directed toward the target. No study has investigated the ontogenetic development of this behavior. In the current study, we compared the showing behavior in 4–6 month old puppies and 2–11 year old adults in an out of reach task in...

Understanding how behavioural traits co-vary within and between individuals is a major aim of behavioural ecologists working across a wide range of taxa. Here we attempted to measure five key behavioural traits (aggression, boldness, exploration, activity and sociability) in a native Australian social skink, Egernia whitii. Specifically, we documented the temporal consistency of trait structural definition, the temporal consistency of trait expression and the relationships between behavioural traits (i.e. behavioural syndromes). We found (1) that the structural consistency of some traits (boldness), but not others (aggressiveness and exploration), changed across time and according to sex (i.e. the relationship between the raw behaviours that were measured in the boldness assay was different for males and females); (2) that three of the five behavioural traits exhibited moderate-to-high adjusted repeatability while two were not repeatable; (3) covariances between behavioural traits were weak to non-existent and did not support the presence of any behavioural syndromes. These results indicate that structural consistency of traits or the behavioural 'definition' of an aggregate score is potentially variable over time. This may limit inference on any subsequent estimates of repeatability of behavioural traits, as well as estimates of potential syndromes. Repeatability of behavioural traits may reflect underlying ecological importance, or measurement processes, and lack of behavioural syndromes may reflect lack of selection pressure for trait covariance. Studies examining multiple behavioural traits under a measurement as well as an ecological framework are crucial to make meaningful inferences regarding the ecological and evolutionary significance of behavioural traits. bs_bs_banner

Domestic dogs have been shown to engage in interspecific communication with their owners using a flexible repertoire of signals (i.e., gaze, vocalizations, and postures). This ability is influenced by ontogenetic development as well as breed selection. Different aspects of this phenomenon have been studied using the out of reach/hidden object task in which a piece of food is shown to the dog and then hidden in an unreachable spot by the experimenter. Dogs’ behavioral displays toward the target and the owner (ignorant about the location of the food) have been observed. The complex communicative behavior dogs exhibit in this context is defined as showing behavior and includes attention-getting components directed toward the owner, and directional components directed toward the target. No study has investigated the ontogenetic development of this behavior. In the current study, we compared the showing behavior in 4–6 month old puppies and 2–11 year old adults in an out of reach task in...

Domestic dogs have been shown to engage in interspecific communication with their owners using a flexible repertoire of signals (i.e., gaze, vocalizations, and postures). This ability is influenced by ontogenetic development as well as breed selection. Different aspects of this phenomenon have been studied using the out of reach/hidden object task in which a piece of food is shown to the dog and then hidden in an unreachable spot by the experimenter. Dogs’ behavioral displays toward the target and the owner (ignorant about the location of the food) have been observed. The complex communicative behavior dogs exhibit in this context is defined as showing behavior and includes attention-getting components directed toward the owner, and directional components directed toward the target. No study has investigated the ontogenetic development of this behavior. In the current study, we compared the showing behavior in 4–6 month old puppies and 2–11 year old adults in an out of reach task in...

Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) live in flexible fission–fusion societies with frequent changes in both group size and composition. These changes depend mostly on resource availability and individual social preferences yet in captivity are determined by housing organizations. During a period of seven years, we observed a group of sanctuary chimpanzees, focusing on how they adapted to changes in the group composition over time. Using linear mixed models (LMMs), factors such as group size, sex ratio, seasonality, and the individuals’ sex and origin (wild caught vs. captive born) were considered in order to evaluate the impact on the chimpanzees’ activity levels, the occurrence of undesired behaviors (abnormal and self-directed behaviors) and the social grooming networks. Our results indicate that the activity levels and the occurrence of undesired behaviors were impacted by changes in group composition and the individuals’ biographic background. The colder season was marked by high...

Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) live in flexible fission–fusion societies with frequent changes in both group size and composition. These changes depend mostly on resource availability and individual social preferences yet in captivity are determined by housing organizations. During a period of seven years, we observed a group of sanctuary chimpanzees, focusing on how they adapted to changes in the group composition over time. Using linear mixed models (LMMs), factors such as group size, sex ratio, seasonality, and the individuals’ sex and origin (wild caught vs. captive born) were considered in order to evaluate the impact on the chimpanzees’ activity levels, the occurrence of undesired behaviors (abnormal and self-directed behaviors) and the social grooming networks. Our results indicate that the activity levels and the occurrence of undesired behaviors were impacted by changes in group composition and the individuals’ biographic background. The colder season was marked by high...

Identifying evolutionary and developmental mechanisms underlying consistent betweenindividual differences in behaviour is the main goal in 'animal personality studies'. Here, we explored if activity and risk-taking varied consistently between individuals, and correlated to various-potentially fitness-linked-male traits in Carpetan rock lizards (Iberolacerta cyreni). Lizards showed significant consistency within both behaviours, implying the presence of activity and risk-taking personalities. However, there were no correlation between activity and risk-taking, neither on the between-, nor on the within-individual levels, implying the absence of a behavioural syndrome. We found a strong link between the intensity of blood-parasite (Haemogregarinidae) infection and risk-taking: lizards with higher infection intensity took more risk. While we cannot distinguish cause from causative in the parasite intensity-risk-taking correlation, our results are in line with the asset protection hypothesis predicting that individuals with lower future reproductive value should focus on the current reproductive event and take higher risk.

l Aguará Guazú (Chrysocyon brachyurus) es el cánido más grande de Sudamérica y comparte con el lobo (Canis lupus) un ancestro común. Es solitario e incluso en cautiverio evita a otros individuos de la misma u otra especie. Son escasos los datos sobre el comportamiento de esta especie, aun cuando se encuentra en peligro de extinción y se están desarrollando estrategias para su conservación. El objetivo del trabajo es evaluar un Aguará Guazú criado por humanos en tareas socio-cognitivas interespecíficas: la sociabilidad hacia una persona familiar y hacia un desconocido, la mirada a la cara humana para solicitar comida y el seguimiento de claves humanas para encontrar alimento oculto. Los resultados muestran altos niveles de sociabilidad así como la capacidad de aprender a usar claves humanas para resolver problemas. Se discute la importancia de la socialización intensiva en periodos tempranos del desarrollo en cánidos.The maned wolf or Aguará Guazú (Chrysocyon brachyurus), is the larg...

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A desirable dog guide weighs 18 to 32 kg as an adult. Male and female German shepherd dogs and male and female Labrador retrievers were weighed between birth and 18 mo of age, with at least one weight recorded after 290 d of age. Growth curves were constructed from 10,484 observations on 880 dogs using the Gompertz function in the form W t = W max exp(−e [−(t−c)/b]), where W t is weight at time t, W max is mature body weight, b is proportional to duration of growth, c is age at point of inflection, and t is age in days. Estimates for mature body weight were 2.4 ± .3 kg higher for Labrador retrievers than for German shepherd dogs and 4.7 ± .2 kg higher for males than for females. Male

A human-dog relationship is characterized by living close together in the same environment which might provoke social conflicts around particular resources, such as food and social partners. Dogs developed behavioural patterns in response to dog-human social conflicts as well as to receive reinforcement and to prevent punishment. However, few studies have investigated the behavioural responses of dogs to dog-human social conflict situations. Therefore, 22 dogs' behavioural responses to the thwarting of food by a human over a period of 180 s (frustration-provoking situation) and to an operant conditioning task were studied. The 2 testing situations were applied in a random order to each dog. Dog-human interactions, such as gazing and seeking out contact, passive and active behavioural responses, exploration and submissive behaviour were recorded. The dogs' behavioural responses in the frustration-provoking test and the learning test were analysed using descriptive statistical and repeated measures analysis of variance within the linear mixed models procedure. Throughout both test situations, the main behavioural responses displayed by the dogs were interacting with the experimenter or standing alert. The dogs tried to get to the withheld food using their mouth (frustration-provoking test: mean = 70.97 s, SD ± 45.23; operant conditioning task: mean = 12.72 s, SD ± 18.99) and gazed at the experimenter (frustrationprovoking test: mean = 26.86, SD ± 40.86; operant conditioning task: mean = 11.55, SD ± 13.96). The time the dogs tried to get to the withheld food using their mouth and gazing at the experimenter significantly influenced the time the dogs took to lie down (F 1,15 = 28.15, P = 0.000). Standing alert, a passive behavioural response to a social conflict, significantly influenced the time the dogs needed to lie down in the operant conditioning task (F 1,30 = 61.16, P = 0.000). There was a significant relationship between the standing alert and withdrawal behaviour (r s = 0.670, P = 0.000), that means the dogs moved backwards a few steps before they stood alert. All dogs licked their noses or lips 1-32 times (mean = 11.59, SD ± 7.84) throughout the frustration-provoking test and only half of the dogs performed those behaviours 1-14 times (mean = 2.91, SD ± 3.10) throughout the operant conditioning task. The data suggest that dogs primarily show the same behavioural responses when comparing a frustration-provoking situation to an operant conditioning task during dog-human interaction. This paper highlights the importance to increase our understanding of dog's behavioural patterns and body language displayed during dog-human conflicts.

The communicating skills of dogs are well documented and especially their contact-seeking behaviours towards humans. The aim of this study was to use the unsolvable problem paradigm to investigate differences between breed groups in their contact-seeking behaviours towards their owner and a stranger. Twenty-four dogs of ancient breeds, 58 herding dogs, and 17 solitary hunting dogs were included in the study, and their behaviour when presented with an unsolvable problem task (UPT) was recorded for 3 min. All breed groups interacted with the test apparatus the same amount of time, but the herding dogs showed a longer gaze duration towards their owner compared to the other groups and they also preferred to interact with their owner instead of a stranger. Interestingly, the solitary hunting dogs were more in stranger proximity than the other groups, and they also showed a preference to make contact with a stranger instead of their owner. Hence, we found differences in contact-seeking be...

Dogs were domesticated from wolves about 15,000 years ago, and an important selection pressure (intentional or unintentional) has been their ability to communicate and cooperate with people. They show extensive human-directed sociability, which varies within as well as between breeds and is not shared by ancestral wolves. Hence, dogs are potentially ideal models for studying the genetics of social behavior. Here, we review some recent research carried out by us and others on this subject. We present results showing that recent selection of different breed types can be used as a model system for investigating the genetic architecture of personalities. Furthermore, we review data showing that human-directed social behavior is significantly related to a small number of genes that have known connections to human social disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. We suggest that dogs are excellent study subjects for analyzing the evolution and genetics of social behavior and can serve as...

We investigate dog's behaviours that influence performance in avalanche searches  Dog's strategy and relationship with handler are analysed  We develop a standardized applied research model for avalanche search  Behaviours indicating a proactive strategy are associated with successful performance  Dog's autonomy and handler's attention contribute to the success of search trials

Domestic dogs' (Canis lupus familiaris) socio-cognitive faculties have made them highly sensitive to human social cues. While dogs often excel at understanding human communicative gestures, they perform comparatively poorly in problem-solving and physical reasoning tasks. This difference in their behaviour could be due to the lifestyle and intense socialization, where problem solving and physical cognition are less important than social cognition. Free-ranging dogs live in human-dominated environments, not under human supervision and are less socialized. Being scavengers, they often encounter challenges where problem solving is required in order to get access to food. We tested Indian street dogs in familiar and unfamiliar independent solvable tasks and quantified their persistence and dependence on a novel human experimenter, in addition to their success in solving a task. Our results indicate that free-ranging dogs succeeded and persisted more in the familiar task as compared ...

The Labrador retriever is a breed of domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris/Canis familiaris) of great importance to our current society. This breed was selected to be an excellent water dog and to work with fishermen. Because of its origins, the popular belief is that Labrador retrievers are "keen water lovers." However, the extent to which this is true, and whether recent selection pressures might have changed the breed is unknown. In this pilot work, we investigated the relative importance of water as a behavioral stimulus for the modern breed. The study was conducted in an arena with a swimming pool to evaluate differences in the frequency of approach behaviors and the duration of interaction behaviors toward 3 stimuli: water, dog, and human. The behaviors were measured during 2-minute periods for each Labrador retriever (N ¼ 10), in 3 trials, with all the stimuli present at the same time in the arena. The dogs interacted significantly longer with the water stimulus than with the dog and the human stimuli. The median of the frequency of approach to the water stimulus was significantly different from the median frequency of approach to the dog stimulus. The water appeared to be a positive stimulus for this group of Labrador retrievers and the most appealing of the 3 stimuli in the specific test condition. With this pilot study, we sought to introduce novel research in terms of needs and preferences of specific dog breeds, with particular relevance of regular contact with swimming water to the welfare of this breed.

Among mammals there is usually an increased frequency of aggressive interactions when population density increases. Conducted at the Arnhem Zoo, the present study examined the effects of spatial crowding on social behavior. Observations were carried out during three winter and two summer periods, using six distinct behavioral categories as dependent variables. The hypothesis that the behavior of individual chimpanzees would be intensified under crowded conditions was examined. Only absolute grooming changes supported the "density-intensity" hypothesis-Aggression data exhibited only a slight increase. Apparently, advanced mammalian forms, such as chimpanzees and human beings, are able to cope with crowding-induced stress by engaging in alternatives to overt aggression.

Domestic dogs' (Canis lupus familiaris) socio-cognitive faculties have made them highly sensitive to human social cues. While dogs often excel at understanding human communicative gestures, they perform comparatively poorly in problem-solving and physical reasoning tasks. This difference in their behaviour could be due to the lifestyle and intense socialization, where problem solving and physical cognition are less important than social cognition. Free-ranging dogs live in human-dominated environments, not under human supervision and are less socialized. Being scavengers, they often encounter challenges where problem solving is required in order to get access to food. We tested Indian street dogs in familiar and unfamiliar independent solvable tasks and quantified their persistence and dependence on a novel human experimenter, in addition to their success in solving a task. Our results indicate that free-ranging dogs succeeded and persisted more in the familiar task as compared ...

The Labrador retriever is a breed of domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris/Canis familiaris) of great importance to our current society. This breed was selected to be an excellent water dog and to work with fishermen. Because of its origins, the popular belief is that Labrador retrievers are "keen water lovers." However, the extent to which this is true, and whether recent selection pressures might have changed the breed is unknown. In this pilot work, we investigated the relative importance of water as a behavioral stimulus for the modern breed. The study was conducted in an arena with a swimming pool to evaluate differences in the frequency of approach behaviors and the duration of interaction behaviors toward 3 stimuli: water, dog, and human. The behaviors were measured during 2-minute periods for each Labrador retriever (N ¼ 10), in 3 trials, with all the stimuli present at the same time in the arena. The dogs interacted significantly longer with the water stimulus than with the dog and the human stimuli. The median of the frequency of approach to the water stimulus was significantly different from the median frequency of approach to the dog stimulus. The water appeared to be a positive stimulus for this group of Labrador retrievers and the most appealing of the 3 stimuli in the specific test condition. With this pilot study, we sought to introduce novel research in terms of needs and preferences of specific dog breeds, with particular relevance of regular contact with swimming water to the welfare of this breed.

Companion cats often occupy the same anthropogenic niche as dogs in human families. Still, cat cognition remains an underrepresented research subject in ethology. Our goal was to examine whether two components that are crucial in dog-human communicative interactions (sensitivity to ostensive signals; gaze following) are also present in cats. In a two-object choice task, we used dynamic and momentary gazing in ostensive and nonostensive communicative situations. We tested 41 cats at their owner's home. Cats on the group level achieved a 70% overall success rate, showing that they are capable of following human gaze as a referential cue. Cats' success rate was unaffected both by the type of gazing and the presence/absence of ostensive communication, showing that the subjects followed readily even the more difficult momentary cues. We found a trend (p = 0.085), showing that young cats (max. 1 year old) may achieve higher success rate than adult animals. Ostension had a significant effect on the latency of eye contact, which was the shortest when the experimenter called the cat's attention with ostensive signals (p = 0.006). Our results are the first that prove cats' ability to follow human gaze, which is considered to be one of the more difficult visual referential signals given during human-animal interactions. Although ostension did not affect the success rate of cats, we found ostensive human signals to be a more effective attention elicitor compared to non-ostensive vocalizations. Our study therefore provided the first insight to the existence of sensitivity to human ostension in another non-human species besides dogs. These results emphasize the possible relevance of the domestication process and responsiveness to socialization in the development of human-compatible socio-cognitive skills even in such animals as the cat, where the ancestor was not a highly social species.

Excessive food intake and the resulting excess weight gain is a growing problem in human and canine populations. Dogs, due to their shared living environment with humans, may provide a beneficial model to study the causes and consequences of obesity. Here, we make use of two well-established research paradigms (two-way choice paradigm and cognitive bias test), previously applied with dogs, to investigate the role of obesity and obesity-prone breeds for food responsiveness. We found no evidence of breed differences in food responsiveness due to one breed being more prone to obesity than another. Breed differences found in this study, however, can be explained by working dog status, i.e. whether the dog works in cooperation with, or independently from, humans. Our results also confirm that overweight dogs, as opposed to normal weight dogs, tried to maximize food intake from the higher quality food and hesitated to do the task when the food reward was uncertain. These results are very ...

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Humans show greater affiliation with people who are behaviorally synchronized with them but little is known about the impact of synchronization at an interspecific level. We, therefore, explored whether the synchronization of humans with dogs affects dogs' human preferences. Pet dogs were exposed to two unfamiliar persons: one synchronized her walking behavior with them and one walked randomly. In a preference test, molossoids exhibited a clear social preference for the synchronized person, unlike shepherds. We conclude that pet dogs show a greater affiliation with humans who mimic their walking behavior, although genetic selection modulates this propensity. Behavioral synchronization, therefore, acts as a social glue in dogs too. It is the first time that such a human-like ability has been highlighted in domesticated canids at an interspecific level. Implications for the evolution of behavioral synchronization are discussed.

Dogs are known to be skilled at using human social signals such as pointing at a target, gaze, visual direction of attention, and facial emotional cues. Two nonmutually exclusive hypotheses have been proposed to explain these abilities: the domestication hypothesis and the "Two-Stage" hypothesis. One way to test the Two-Stage hypothesis is to compare subpopulations of dogs with different histories with humans. For example, the abilities of pet dogs, who live in human homes and have developed strong affiliative bonds with humans, can be compared with those of shelter dogs, who live in social isolation and are deprived of extended contact with humans. Here, we review the extant literature on studies comparing these 2 subpopulations using identical protocols. Pet dogs perform better than shelter dogs at following human pointing and at estimating humans' attentional state or direction of visual attention. Shelter dogs seem to be more socially driven to gaze and interact with humans compared to pet dogs. Shelter dogs' impoverished contact with humans is the best candidate explanation for these results. We survey results highlighting the importance of life experience and learning in determining dogs' abilities to use human social cues and argue that shelter dogs may have learned not to respond to human cues that are not useful to them or have lost some previously acquired skills due to a lack of exposure to humans. Finally, we encourage further research that adds to both our theoretical and practical understanding of the impaired abilities of shelter dogs to use human social cues, and its link with the effect of life experiences.

Consistent individual differences within (animal personality) and across (behavioural syndrome) behaviours became well recognized during the past decade. Nevertheless, our knowledge about the evolutionary and developmental mechanisms behind the phenomena is still incomplete. Here, we explored if risk-taking and exploration were consistent and linked to different ecologically relevant traits in wild-caught adult male European green lizards (Lacerta viridis) and in their 2-3 weeks old laboratory-reared offspring. Both adults and juveniles displayed animal personality, consistency being higher in juveniles. We found correlation between risk-taking and exploration (suggestive of a behavioural syndrome) only in adults. Juveniles were more explorative than adults. Large or ectoparasite-free adult males were more explorative than small or parasitized males. Juvenile females tended to be more risk-taking than males. Behaviour of fathers and their offspring did not correlate. We conclude tha...

A behavioural syndrome occurs when individuals behave in a consistent way through time or across contexts and is analogous to ‘personality’ or ‘temperament’. Interest is accumulating in behavioural syndromes owing to their important ecological and evolutionary consequences. There are plenty of opportunities in this burgeoning young field to integrate proximate and functional approaches to studying behaviour, but there are few guidelines about where to start or how to design a study on behavioural syndromes. After summarizing what we do and do not know, this brief review aims to act as a general guide for studying behavioural syndromes. Although the array of possible behavioural combinations can seem overwhelming, there are at least four different strategies that can be used to choose which behaviours or contexts to study in a behavioural syndromes view. I describe the strengths and weaknesses of these non-exclusive strategies, and then discuss the methodological and statistical issu...

Domestic dogs' (Canis lupus familiaris) responsiveness to human action has been a topic of scientific interest for almost two decades. However, are all breeds of domestic dog equally prepared to succeed on human-guided object choice tasks? In the current study we compared three breeds of dog with distinct predatory motor pattern sequences still under direct selection pressure today based on their traditional working roles. Airedale Terriers (hunting dogs) are bred for a fully intact predatory sequence, matching the wild-type form. Border Collies (herding dogs) are bred for an exaggeration of the eye-stalk-chase component of the predatory sequence. Anatolian Shepherds (livestock guarding dogs) are bred for the inhibition of the full predatory sequence. Here we asked if and how these opposing selection pressures corresponded with each breed's tendency to track and follow a human point to a target in an object-choice task. Our results suggest that the presence or exaggeration of key components of the predatory sequence may in fact predict superior initial performance on pointing tasks when compared to a breed selected for its inhibited predatory response. This is the first time relative success on a pointing task has been tied to a known heritable behavioral mechanism (breed specific motor patterns). However, we also demonstrate that breedspecific differences can sometimes be overcome with additional experience. Thus an individual's performance on human-guided tasks is still best predicted by a combination of genetic and lifetime factors. Broader implications for the understanding and investigation of canine social cognition are discussed.

The ability of animals to communicate using gaze is a rich area of research. How domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) use and respond to the gaze of humans is an area of particular interest. This study examined how three groups of domestic dogs from different populations (free-ranging dogs, pet dogs, and shelter dogs) responded to a human during three attentional state conditions: when the human was making eye contact (attentive), when the human was turned away (inattentive), and when the human exited the testing area. We found that dogs from different populations differed in their gazing behaviour. Freeranging dogs responded to the human's change in attentional state by looking significantly less at the human in the inattentive condition compared to the attentive condition. Pet and shelter dogs did not differ in their gazing behaviour between these conditions. However, they gazed significantly more at the human in both the inattentive and attentive conditions compared to the free-ranging dogs and also spent more time in the proximity of the experimenter. This study suggests that life experience plays an important role in how dogs respond to the attentional state of a human.

Animal welfare has become an important determinant of meat quality with poor animal temperament leading to huge economic losses to the meat industry due to carcass bruising and condemnation. Handling and transport of live animals is a stressful experience for animals. The temperaments of cattle affect their behaviour and differ between breeds, i.e. studies have shown that Bos indicus types are more temperamental than Sanga and Bos taurus types. Catecholamines (CAT's) are considered as indicators of stress, because higher concentrations of CAT's in brain tissue were noted in animals that are better adapted to stressful situations. In the present study, urinary CAT's of three beef breeds were determined immediately post mortem. Brahman cattle represented Bos indicus types, Simmentaler cattle represented Bos taurus types and Nguni cattle represented the Sanga type. Nguni steers showed higher urinary norepinephrine (NE) and epinephrine (E) concentrations than Brahman and Simmentaler steers. Simmentaler steers showed a higher concentration of urinary dopamine (DA) than Br and Ng. The results suggest that Nguni cattle are less stress sensitive compared to the other beef breeds studied. These observations may be due to the process of domestication and selection for specific genes that influence tameability and consequently resulting in a shift in circulating concentrations of urinary CAT's.

There are few quantitative examinations of the extent to which dogs discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar persons. In our study we have investigated whether dogs show differential behaviour towards humans of different degrees of familiarity (owner, familiar person, unfamiliar person). Dogs and humans were observed in eight test situations: (1) Three-way strange situation test, (2) Calling in from food, (3) Obedience test, (4) Walking away, (5) Threatening approach, (6) Playful interaction, (7) Food inhibition test and (8) Manipulation of the dog's body. Dogs distinguished between the owner and the two other test partners in those tests which involved separation from the owner (Test 1, 4), were aversive for the dog (Test 5) or involved playing interaction (Test 6). Our results revealed that the owner cannot be replaced by a familiar person in situations provoking elevated anxiety and fear. In contrasts, dogs did not discriminate between the owner and the familiar person in those tests that were based on obedient behaviour or behaviour towards an assertive person (Tests 2, 3, 7 and 8). Dogs' former training experience reduced the difference between their behaviour towards the owner and the familiar person in situations requiring obedience but it did not mask it totally. The dogs' behaviour towards each of the humans participating in the tests was consistent all over the test series. In summary, dogs discriminated between their owner and the unfamiliar person and always preferred the owner to the unfamiliar person. However, the discrimination between the owner and the familiar person is context-specific. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Canine Behavior.

During extinction a previously learned behavior stops being reinforced. In addition to the decrease in the rate of the instrumental response, it produces an aversive emotional state known as frustration. This state can be assimilated with the fear reactions that occur after aversive stimuli are introduced at both the physiological and behavioral levels. This study evaluated frustration reactions of domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) during a communicative situation involving interactions with a human. The task included the reinforcement and extinction of the gaze response toward the experimenter's face when the dogs tried to obtain inaccessible food. The dog's frustration reactions during extinction involved an increase in withdrawal and side orientation to the location of the human as well as lying down, ambulation, sniffing, and vocalizations compared with the last acquisition trial. These results are especially relevant for domestic dog training situations in which the extinction technique is commonly used to discourage undesirable behaviors.

Domestic dogs are very successful at following human cues like gazing or pointing to find hidden food in an object choice task. They solve this kind of situation at their first attempts and from early stages of their development and perform better than wolves. Most of the authors proposed that these abilities are a domestication product, and independent from learning processes. There are few systematic studies on the effects of learning on dogs' communicative skills. We aim to evaluate the effect of extinction and reversal learning procedures on the use of the pointing gesture in an object choice task. The results showed that dogs stopped following the pointing cue in the extinction and that they learned to choose the not pointed container in the reversal learning. Results suggest that instrumental learning plays an important role in interspecific communication mechanisms between humans and dogs. In both experiments for half of the subjects the pointer was the owner and for the rest was a stranger. A differential effect was found: extinction was slower but reversal learning was faster when the owner gave the cue. This data indicates that the relationship of the dog with the person who emits the cue influences performance.

personality descriptors demonstrated generalization of the Big Five to a nonhuman hominoid, the chimpanzee. Factor analysis identified one large factor that contained 12 adjectives and was clearly related to Dominance. Each of the remaining five factors was defined by fewer than 12 adjectives and resembled somewhat narrowed versions of the human Big Five. Since the chimpanzees displayed six factors and not the human five, the factor structure was not simply an artifact of the implicit personality theories of the raters based on human personality structure. Furthermore, a review of animal personality literature by Gosling and John (1999) showed some of the Big Five factors in a wide assortment of species, ranging from octopuses to dogs. Research on primate personality factors has been based on behavioral measures as well as subjective ratings by raters who were familiar with the animals. For primates, both methods of assessing personality have high interrater reliabilities, evidence that the resulting personality factors reflect real characteristics of the animals (

Common marmosets, one of the smallest anthropoid primates, have a relatively high reproductive rate, capable of producing twins or triplets twice per year. Growth and development of infants is relatively rapid, and lactation is relatively short at less than 3 months. Although mean values for the proximate composition (dry matter, protein, fat and sugar) of captive common marmoset milks fall within anthropoid norms, composition is highly variable among individual samples, with concentrations of milk fat ranging from below 1 to over 10%. To examine the extent to which this variation might be a consequence of captive conditions, we collected milk samples from wild common marmosets freely living on a farm in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The proximate composition of the milk samples was assayed using identical techniques as used for the captive marmoset milks. The composition of the milk of wild common marmosets was also variable, but tended to be lower in dry matter, fat, protein and gross energy, and higher in sugar than milks from captive animals. Interestingly, the percentage of estimated gross energy from the protein fraction of the milks was relatively constant in both wild and captive marmosets and did not differ between wild and captive animals: lkcal of common marmoset milk contains on average (+ SEM) 0.035 + .001 g of protein regardless of the gross energy content of the milk or whether the milk was from a wild or captive animal. In contrast, in 1 kcal of low-energy milks, the amount of sugar was significantly higher and the amount of fat significantly lower than in 1 kcal of high-energy milks. Thus, common marmoset milk exhibits axes of variability (especially fat concentration) as well as a significant stability in the relative amount of protein. Am.

Dogs' (Canis familiaris) and cats' (Felis catus) interspecific communicative behavior toward humans was investigated. In Experiment 1, the ability of dogs and cats to use human pointing gestures in an object-choice task was compared using 4 types of pointing cues differing in distance between the signaled object and the end of the fingertip and in visibility duration of the given signal. Using these gestures, both dogs and cats were able to find the hidden food; there was no significant difference in their performance. In Experiment 2, the hidden food was made inaccessible to the subjects to determine whether they could indicate the place of the hidden food to a naive owner. Cats lacked some components of attention-getting behavior compared with dogs. The results suggest that individual familiarization with pointing gestures ensures high-level performance in the presence of such gestures; however, species-specific differences could cause differences in signaling toward the human.